One man's search for God in the cosmos

This journey of a minister to reconcile his faith with the natural world and wonder and mystery has been a fascinating read for me. Check this out.

"Because of a particular conception of the nature of God (in which God occasionally intervenes in history, but otherwise exists outside of natural processes), many clergy, liberal and conservative, tend to dismiss these experiences* as flaky, or more dramatically as heretical. Admittedly, as [Richard] Tarnas points out, we can get carried away, rendering every triviality in our lives with deep purpose and meaning. There is also a danger of spiritual narcissism, in which everything that happens is significant only in relation to one's own reality."

Many churches negate these experiences, risking disassociation with the natural world and God's involvement. Some overemphasize them, risking spiritual narcissism. Sanguin's call is for re-connecting the Spirit of God within, above, below, behind, and in front of all creation, and this is his foundation for the book as he builds on an ecological ethic. I've not finished the book and don't agree with his total package, but finding this a worldview expanding and intellectually recharging read.

*He had referred earlier in the chapter to experiences that are variously called miracles, supernatural, random, coincidence, what Carl Jung calls "synchronicity"--no, not talking about the Police/Phil Collins CD.